Deck the Halls!

We did our holiday decorating last week, and I'm really happy with how it turned out. Because we're going to be gone for almost two weeks over Christmas and New Year's, we opted not to get a full Christmas tree, but did want to infuse a little holiday cheer into our apartment. Plus, we decided to do stockings for each other this year, so I figured the mantle definitely needed a little love. Throw together some free fir branch scraps from a local garden store that was selling Christmas trees, about $8 worth of gold and red berry sprigs, plus gold painted pine cones, from the craft store, 45 minutes of Christmas tunes, and voila! Not too shabby...



It's kind of hard to see in the picture above, so here's a closer look:

With some of the extra berry sprigs, I created some quick candle decorations for the large pillar candles that I had on the mantle earlier in the fall:

And, finally, a little fresh fir wreath around a delicious holiday scented candle:

Now we can enjoy a little holiday cheer even without a fully decked Christmas tree!